Wednesday, July 26, 2006

question about cast ons, bind offs and seaming and bugs on square one

Hello everyone. I am new and have a couple of questions if anyone would care to comment. First, on the backside (WS) of the afghan, would it look bad if all the seams are not done the same way? To whit: I plan to use a provisional cast on for the bottom edge of "normal" squares that aren't somehow stitched or otherwise constructed (ones that are knitted normally from bottom up rather than put together or with borders). The top edge, normally a bindoff will be left "live" to seam with bottom edge of another swatch via 3 needle bindoff method. Side to side seams will be done with normal mattress stitch. These 2 seams will appear quite different on the back. I would prefer the back to appear as pristine as possible.Apropos of the first published square in Knitters, "Kisses and Hugs, Spiders and Bugs": I see a bug on the spiderweb. I don't know if it is the "big" bug or not as I cannot see any other bug on the swatch. I plan to by the pattern in book form instead of using the magazine but don't have it yet. Perhaps in the book it is more clearly pictured? Is the other bug up on the leaf at top left? Looks like it might be.Thanks for any help and any other hints on pitfalls or suggestions for working this thing. I am having an utter blast knitting the spider square! I love this thing. I am very comfortable with Aran knitting so this is not a problem. I would just love to hear of any experiences and good advice anyone has to give so as to avoid problems ahead of time!

1 comment:

I think the seaming would be much smoother if you did as you suggest, and do a 3-needle bind off for the top and bottom seams. Remember, though, that a bunch of the squares are knit in the round and you won't be able to do that with those, so if you're planning on knitting those it may look a little uneven. If you haven't bought the book yet, here's a breakdown: 18 are knit bottom to top, 2 are knit right to left, and four are knit (the garter-st border, at least) in the round. You could always put the sideways squares to rights again, though, and put the in-the-round squares on the pillows or something. I'll try to take a picture of the back of my afghan at some point in the near future to show you what the regular seams look like, in case that helps you decide.

As for the bugs, yup, the second bug is on the top left leaf. You can put your own bugs wherever you want them, though. I also totally hadn't realized that the upper right area (chart D) was a spiderweb. I think I might have preferred my ignorance, though, because now I feel sorry for the poor bug caught in it!